


Take your convictions (watch them die with the light in your eyes)

by just_a_sunflower_girl



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, The hargreeves kids need a hug, What else is new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 19:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18300512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_a_sunflower_girl/pseuds/just_a_sunflower_girl
Summary: Affection always came with a price in their household.You had to be the best, you had to be perfect. There was no room for failure, no room for the imperfect or the ordinary. You had to prove you were worth the time.





	Take your convictions (watch them die with the light in your eyes)

Affection always came with a price in their household.  

 

You had to be the best, you had to be perfect. There was no room for failure, no room for the imperfect or the ordinary. You had to prove you were worth the time.

 

They had all been desperate and alone, willing to tear each other to shreds for the brief relief of acknowledgement. The short moment where you knew, for certain, that you were enough.

 

It had been cruel, pitting them against each other and watching them break and scratch and destroy one another. It had been deliberate, a way to control them. They wouldn’t fight him if they were too busy fighting each other. They would never win so long as they weren’t united.

 

They had been young and stupid, they hadn’t known any better.

 

They got older. one by one they found the truth. They were playing a game with no rules, no prize, no meaning. One by one they left.

 

Five was first, angry and sad with something to prove. He ran out the door and never came back.

 

Then Vanya, sick and tired of being nothing, a shadow in her own home. She left in the middle of the night, taking nothing but the violin she had been so good at playing.

 

Ben died, horrible and painful and alone.

 

Klaus left a week later, haunted and afraid, hopped up on whatever he could find. He left in the middle of the day, right out the front door with a backpack of clothes and no shoes on.

 

Then it was Diego, angry and hurt after one too many times of not being enough. He’d only been staying for mom, everyone knew that. But then mom wasn’t enough reason to stay. He left with in the middle of the night with no plan and no goodbye.

 

Allison landed a big role and she was gone too. Promising she’d stay if that was what was best but it wasn’t. She left in the morning, with a suitcase and a smile and a promise to keep in touch.

 

Luther stayed. He suffered for it. Even with no competition the game still had to be played. It was an endless cycle. Do better, do better, do better. Eventually better wasn’t enough and he paid for it.

 

That wouldn’t happen this time. They were going to do better. Stand together and fight, for themselves and each other. They wouldn’t destroy each other for the approval of someone who would never care.

 

They’d play the game again. This time they’d win.


End file.
